The social movement #gamergate involves many ongoing reactions to several events that transpired in 2013 within the gaming industry. Some of the topics discussed in this social movement involve misogyny, threats, and may bring up some unpleasant feelings.
*trigger warning*
But it all started with a game designer named Zoe Quinn who used to suffer from clinical depression. She actually credits being alive today to finding a video game design class to participate in a few years back.
Quinn wanted to make a game that simulated what living life with depression was like. She did this by creating "Depression Quest," an interactive (non) fiction text-based choose-your-own-adventure game. Translation: She made a story that the player could read through and choose their own decisions as the main character.
I actually played this game - and I have to say that it was not enjoyable. But Quinn is very upfront about the fact that it's not supposed to be fun to play. This game is meant to make you feel like you're living life with clinical depression. It even limits some of your choices in the game play to help understand how someone suffering from depression might approach a certain situation.
Quinn also offered resources and trigger warning to those playing this game who do suffer from depression. Her main goal in the creation of this interative fiction game was to raise awareness and open the conversation about clinical depression.
This game received a lot of negative reviews from the online gaming community.....and some positive.
The intense reaction that this game sparked in the gaming community only intensified once it was released onto a more accessible website called Steam.....the same day that Robin Williams committed suicide. Of course this release wasn't planned to line up with the death of a celebrity suffering from depression, but Quinn figured that it worked to her benefit since she was trying to raise awareneess on the subject anyways.
“I can’t in good conscience hold back offering someone something that could help them start making real changes in their life for the sake of reducing the risk of offending people or hurting my own reputation.”
- Zoe Quinn
Now comes the messy part....Quinn was accused of cheating on her boyfriend in exchange for good reviews on her recent game release. Many believed that she didn't deserve great reviews on her game, and many thought that this would be a great time to attack the ethics in gaming journalism. Zoe Quinn's now exboyfriend was very vocal on his blog titled "thezoepost" about the feelings he has/had about her and their relationship. And that is an understatement. Below is a screenshot from the front page of his blog.
So, back to the ethics in journalism part of the story...
A lot of the gaming community was outraged by the reviews and rumors surrounding Zoe and her game. An actor named Adam Baldwin was tweeting while participating in this ongoing conversation and was the first to initiate the hashtag #gamergate. Many started using it to communicate about the "original" ethics in journalism issue.
Zoe Quinn also received many responses to this situation personally. The fact that she is a woman may be the reason some of them were so harsh. The harrassment intensified and spread to some of Zoe's supporters and other women in the gaming media world as well.
Harrassment and internet "trolling" went so far that Zoe Quinn along with Anita Sarkeesian were forced to leave their homes due to threats.
Anita Sarkeesian released a series of videos exploring how women are portrayed in video games around this time as well making her a target as well. Anita also owns a website called Feminist Frequency that explors many different mediums of feminist culture.
Not all members of the gaming community reacted with such misogyny. Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian did have a lot of support, but that doesn't change what was and is still being said to them via the internet.
But...lots of sexist and misogynistic comments were made towards the women involved in this movement and it just makes me wonder if the same would have happened if it were involving men instead.
Treats involved personal addresses of Anita, Zoe, and their close friends and family.
